Category: notes

  • Logging off… for now

    Logging off… for now

    I’ve been on Twitter (now called “X”) since I was 10. Since that time, it has served largely as a stream of consciousness of almost every passing thought I have had since then: good or bad. I’ve been concerned about how heavily I use social media, and Twitter in particular, and its impact on my…

  • The crisis of the 2021 Samoan election

    The crisis of the 2021 Samoan election

    Last month’s election in the small Pacific Island nation and the constitutional crisis that continues into this week has me asking: Was Samoa ever a democracy? By any intuitive account, yes. It has free elections for a parliament from which ministers are appointed and a head of state is elected, and the Samoan constitution grants…

  • A note on self-defence

    A note on self-defence

    The phrase “Israel has the right to defend itself” is said almost-reflexively in response to every single Israeli airstrike on Gaza. Of course, few here in the West would challenge this notion (and I certainly don’t seek to). Instead, I argue that the term self-defence has been erroneously deployed in this instance. The airstrikes, largely…

  • I locked a DVD case by accident…

    I locked a DVD case by accident…

    I try to open a DVD case that has one of those awful locks that stores used to put in DVDs for 14 minutes.